


Beta Cancri

by wizardslexicon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Martial Arts, On the Run, Post-War, Relativistic Time, Space Opera, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizardslexicon/pseuds/wizardslexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman on her third identity finds herself on the run from alien police for crimes committed deep in her past, with no hope of finding a future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beta Cancri

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to credit the following: _Lord of Misrule ___, by Jaimy Gordon, stylistic inspiration; "Bullet to the Brain", Tobias Wolffe, scene inspiration; _The Sound and the Fury ___, by William Faulkner, stylistic inspiration; The Small Forest Temple, spiritual inspiration; and irismon, beta reading.

It starts like this: one night Frankie hears the word “legislacerator”, picks up her phone and dials a number no one else in her star system knows exists. It picks up on the first ring, but she is patched through three layers of security. Finally, a sleepy voice, the little dash of Guatemala stronger for fatigue:

Hello, this is Jane. The voice pitches up at the end, as if it’s a question. Such as: why are you calling the secure line at this fucking ridiculous hour, this had better be good, et al. But Frankie doesn’t have long on this line so she keeps it simple.

Janey. You gotta get me out of here.

Six hours later three hooded figures arrive at the Sweet Mary Bar & Grill.

 

Restaurants are one of the few spaces where humans and trolls get along. Food is a matter of survival; from the lawnrings of Alternia to the _favela_ of Earth, everyone respects a meal. Those who can’t do that learn to respect Frankie’s refurbished troll shotgun, which she polishes nightly to remind people that yes, caliber can be measured in centimeters.

Humans and trolls ain’t so different, she says to Hooded Stranger Number Two. You ask one if they want ketchup and the other what color they like their grubsauce. Everyone goes home happy.

His buddies, the midget and the grav-hoop player, took seats near the back. Number Two takes his hood off to order a beer—Stella Tyrois, the uncultured swine—and he’s cute, if his sense of style is a bit weird. Funky eyewear aside, though, he looks like a stone cold son of a bitch if Frankie ever saw one. He leans a few inches in towards the bar, and she does the same. He says, I’m going to the bathroom. Three seconds after I get out of my seat, I am going to sneeze. Look at me. Then look past me. The two trolls in your line of sight are legislacerators here to capture you and mislay a few unnecessary extremities.

Frankie says, fuck.

He stands up, sneezes. A few people say bless you and Frankie looks past him and sees them: both in plainclothes, but so plain she should have seen them a mile away. One has dreadlocks and is telling a story several decibels too loudly. The other is laughing, somehow even louder, behind lenses the color of melting iron. They play-act foolishness, but their backs never loosen past one hundred and eighty degrees of perfect straightness.

The one Frankie decides to call Dreadlocks stands up, stretches. She’s got a great rack and a terrifying smile. Frankie tries not to be racist, but what even the fuck are troll teeth, right? Dreadlocks nods at Ironsides, and suddenly they’re both walking toward the bar and reaching for their pockets. Frankie reaches under the counter for her shotgun, but Dreadlocks already has a revolver out.

Time stops. Very few people have noticed the gun, so Dreadlocks says, Fuck if I’m not about to make an entrance, and fires a round into the ceiling. A bit of plaster falls into her hair. Ironsides gives her a little shove while the rest of the patrons pour out of your doors. No one tries to play hero. This isn’t that kind of planet.

Frankie asks “can I help you” in the way that isn’t a question.

As a matter of fact, you can, says Ironsides. Her haircut is horrendous, a cubist’s idea of fashion.  She nods her head, the picture of professional regret. If you would just unhand that shotgun underneath the counter—

Frankie almost missed it. From the corner of the room, Grav-Hoop Player fires a fucking rocket from inside his chest. A robot, of course. To her credit, Dreadlocks is fast. She shoots the rocket, which shrieks off course. Frankie vaults over the bar as the rocket hits the rack of bottles behind it and everything goes hot and white.

Hard, cold arms catch Frankie in the midst of the chaos; one of the robots, she’s sure, but when she looks up it’s Number Two, his dumbfuck shades glowing red. She feels a cold sensation further down and finds that her hands are still clutching the shotgun. Number Two tosses her into his shuttle—a launch vehicle that will carry them up through the atmosphere, to the port in orbit.

What about the other two? He doesn’t answer, punching in commands. The truck’s got good lift, carrying them up to the edge of the atmosphere. The higher you go, the more the truck shudders, adjusting for pressure and making Frankie’s ears pop. Uncomfortably warm, too. Frankie touches her seatbelt and it straps her in by itself.

Troll tech, he says. Nasty, but it gets the job done. His glasses aren’t glowing anymore, and Frankie can see the barest suggestion of his eyes behind them.

That what she said, Frankie snaps. Number Two pauses.

They’ll hold off the legislacerators long enough for us to get to port, he says, voice all cool and flat. Frankie decides right there that Number Two is a stone cold son of a bitch, and that she will never, ever rely on him to save her life if she doesn’t have to.

Where are we going, she asks him.

I know a guy, he replies, then pauses. Next thing he says is quiet: You can tell her I got you out.

Wut? She pronounces it with all the clipped shortness intact.

Come on. He shakes his head. You’re telling me a ninja and two robots saved you from the troll cops and you didn’t even think that Jane Crocker might have, just this once, come through?

Oh hell yes.

 

His ship is scary clean.

Frankie finds out tons of other things about him. For instance, he was made, not born, contracted out by Skaianet Laboratories, subsidiary of CrockerCorp, primary economic force in known human history. His only given name was Dirk but he named himself Strider after a character in an ancient novel. He is basically nuts with a ninja sword and wears a black glove on his right hand.

But the cleanliness of his ship is of more interest. It’s not big, just a clipper retrofitted with the smoothest fucking engines Frankie’d ever felt and hopefully some equally impressive guns. Even with most of the ship automated, it shouldn’t be this immaculate. She never even sees Dirk pick up a rag to polish the console.

They talk at mealtime a few days later.

Where are you from, asks Dirk.

Here and there, Frankie says, genial. You know.

Ah, says Dirk. They go back to eating their synthetic lamb. After a moment, Dirk puts down his fork. He picks up his shades from where they sit at the side of his plate and puts them on. They light up red, and he doesn’t speak again. After a while the light goes away and he takes them back off.

Frankie always washes her own dishes even though Dirk says let the fucking AI take care of it, for the love of god. Doesn’t she know all the water is recycled? For fuck’s sake, it’s just refurbished piss. She says washing dishes is a good way to do nothing. He lets her be.

  


Dirk’s polishing his swords and sending messages to some contacts when he finally figures he should go debrief her. He goes to the little room he set aside for her to sleep in, figures she’ll be napping off her meal. Frankie’s sitting on the hard little pillow he gave her, legs hanging down so her knees touch the floor, with one hand curled into a funnel over her bellybutton and the other cradling her navel. He says what the fuck are you doing. She says nothing but doesn’t open her eyes. He waits for a minute and then she bows low to the floor, and stands up. She starts rubbing herself from the feet up, and then stretching, and says go ahead and say what you need to say.

Dirk says we’re about to make a hyperspace jump to the Dagobah system, she says ell-em-ay-ohhhhh, holding out the “oh”, as she leans forward and holds her ankles.

He says just kidding, but close enough. We’re going to go see a little green man who really hates the evil empire trying to kill us all. He’s going to give us the star charts that’ll route the ship to a safe place you can stay until the trolls get off your scent. I’ll stay with you there for a few weeks until those legislacerators run home to the Empress.

Frankie loses her balance. She says, go check the shields. He says what. She says go check the shields.

 

Go check the shields, Doc Harley says, in flawless Alternian. She even gets the weird wobbly troll inflection, like a cricket song. Roxy rolls her eyes.

For what, a stray asteroid? But the doc’s already turned her attention to something else, expecting perfect obedience. And she gets it, of course. Roxy goes and checks the shields. As it turns out, it was a stray asteroid. Roxy reroutes extra power from the pulse artillery to recharge the plasma array that protects the ship from solid matter and when she gets back to the lab, Doc Harley’s left a list of instructions— centrifuge the latest sample until a predicted white-green precipitate forms, pour off the excess fluid, add about a gram of precipitate to each culture. Then check the shields again.

While the centrifuge turns Roxy walks in straight lines across the lab floor and meditates. Thoughts like clouds float across her mind. Breathe in and they condense, puffy and soft: basic training. The old drill sergeant, who grins and tells them jokes and never once calls the cadets “ladies”, who twirls his moustache and says that he lost his eye and arm to a troll pirate who could put humans to sleep with a glance, but that he’d ripped out her only good eye with the back end of a warhammer. Who watches without a twitch when one of the cadets grabs an assault rifle and says they’ll kill themselves unless he let them out. Who says “Go on, then”, and just whistles in surprise when they do.

Breathe out and the cloud condenses further into rain and falls away. Breathe in: Raisa misses precisely two in every ten shots just to make sure she never makes sharpshooter. Sgt. Egbert says what are you doing. She says nothing. Breathe out.

Breathe in: Raisa is average in everything. One night a male cadet sneaks into the ladies’ showers puts her in a headlock and proceeds to thrust at her, slipping but each time getting closer to target. She tucks her chin into his elbow, grabs his shoulder, and throws him over hers. His back hits the tile with a crack. She leaves him there. Breathe out.

Breathe in: She finishes basic, thanks be to G-d, gets packeded off to a research ship. They put her under the premier biologist in the universe, Jade Feng-Harley, give her pluripotent stem cells from several alien insects, and tell her what they want. If the order takes more than four years, it’s free.

Breathe out. The centrifuge has stopped. Roxy bows and walks over to her laptop, keeping her mind in her feet. She types a few commands. A machine draws off the excess liquid from the substance in the test tubes; another robotic arm distributes the precipitate among eleven cell cultures. Roxy is finished. She goes back to her room and takes a nap.

She forgets to check the shields.

 

Several hours in the past, Dirk leaves his shades on the dinner table. A few seconds in the future, he will check the shields and find this:

HICS _Saline-Enriched Barkbeast_ fires three salvos: first, a battery of light missiles, to test the defense array, which turns out to consist of two cannons that pop out and destroy the missiles; second; a second battery, this time of pulse lasers that burn through the void to bounce off of the real shield, an energy field that soaks up the blasts with a slight shudder; third, a barrage of both to push just path both defenses. Dirk’s clipper is fast, but it is not particularly well defended. A pair of missiles follow the path of fresh plasma to the two defensive cannons, which explode.

Ironsides watches this from her display. Most ships do not have alarms for when their defensive weapons are destroyed, merely maintenance alerts that most captains learn to ignore. Only when the plasma array goes down does the alarm go off. Deep blue shields tend to protect clippers and junks with precious cargo they can’t bear to lose; they’re strong. Half the barrage power of the _Saline-Enriched Barkbeast_ pushes the shield just past capacity and takes out the starboard radar. The shield regains power. The alarms should not have gone off.

Ironsides smiles like a lamprey. The occupants should have felt, at the most, a slight rocking. They probably will not even check the shields.

Dirk checks the shields and runs for his sword.

Frankie takes his sunglasses and puts them on. A red circle appears, then a keyboard and archaic text-chat program.

AR: Frankie, isn’t it? Dirk will be angry that you’re speaking to me.

Frankie’s eyes dart from letter to letter, a synthetic form of typing.

FRANKIE: dirk is probs gonna be dead in a few minutes. the legislacerators are here. do you have his star charts?

AR: Of course. Who the hell do you think I am? 

FRANKIE: good. you and me are getting the hell out of doge

AR: You mean Dodge?

FRANKIE: u heard me, son

Dirk meets two trolls, sword in hand. One of them, dreadlocks wild and banded in gold, holds a pirate saber in one hand and several die in the other. The other is holding an unsheathed sword cane.

Go sweep the ship, says Ironsides. The orange creamsicle human and I have business to attend to. She raises the tip of her cane to chest height, her arm straight out in front of her. Dirk raises his sword and steps in.

He has always been fast, too fast for eyes to track. It is too bad for him that Ironsides doesn’t track people by sight. The tip of her cane perforates the back of his hand and he drops his katana, catching it a second later in his undamaged hand.

I am not left-handed, he says through the pain.

I am not an idiot, says Ironsides, parries his sloppy thrust with businesslike efficiency, and cuts his arm off at the shoulder. This time she plucks his sword out of the air, kicks him in the chest. He loses his balance, twists, and hits the ground facefirst. Ironsides pins him to the deck with his katana, does a little jump onto the vertical pommel of the sword just to get a little extra penetration, and executes an acrobatic pirouette off the handle before pulling out a handkerchief to clean her cane.

Ironsides cackles like a witch and says he ought to be ashamed, and shit like that is why trolls are winning the war.

Dreadlocks returns. Her saber is dry but her mouth is covered with flecks of raw meat.

The human got away on an escape ship, she says. Eleven minutes and eleven seconds before we got here the bitch entered hyperspace.

In an accessory ship?

In an accessory ship, Dreadlocks confirms. She left a note in the kitchen next to four pounds thirteen ounces of raw synthetic lamb. My kinda girl.

What does it say, asks Ironsides. Dreadlocks holds up a slip of paper. In lovely bubblegum pink, it reads: see u bitches in the dagobah system. rolal out.

Oh, goody, says Ironsides. This will be fun. Get back to the ship, Neophyte Serket.

Yes, ma’am, says Neophyte Serket.

Somewhere outside realspace, Frankie is remembering a jazzy little tune from her days watching anything on the Skaianet servers that would cut the boredom. Running through space always reminds her of it.

Okay, she sings. Three, two, one, let’s jam.

 

***

Frankie arrives in the Dagobah system. Turns out it’s actually called the Via Appia, a binary star system that most ships have to stop in, if they’re traveling to the Outer Alternian Cluster, which is a sort of neutral zone on the edge of the galaxy Her Imperious Condescension rules unilaterally,. AR tells her the accessory ship won’t make it through the atmosphere of the relevant planet, so she docks at the free orbital port and pays for a shuttle to the surface.

A buzzing metropolis. AR directs her to a bench where they people-watch for a few hours, until finally a single walker is outlined in red in her vision.

AR: Follow him.

Frankie does. She passes through the crowd invisibly, like a shadow. She follows him to the edges of the city, to a simple office building with all the windows tinted black. He sees her in the reflection of the glass door. He says can I help you. She says I’m looking for Yoda. He says come on in.

Inside is a perfectly innocuous lobby. A fake plant pretends to photosynthesize in the corner. She walks up to the counter and asks to see Yoda.

The clerk says take a seat. Frankie says I don’t have time to wait. The clerk says I’m sorry, but—. Frankie says I’ve had a long day, please don’t fuck with me. The clerk says I don’t want trouble. Frankie says if he don’t start shit, won’t be shit. The clerk says Yoda will be with you shortly. Frankie says he’s damn right.

Forty-three seconds later the elevator opens and Yoda steps out. As it turns out Yoda likes khaki cargo shorts, long green overcoats, and gold piercings, because he’s wearing one of each of the first two and about six of the latter. He nods his head to Frankie and she walks right over to the elevator and gets in.

Be nicer to service workers, you should be, says Yoda.

Cut it out, man, says Frankie. Yoda is quiet.

The name’s Jake. I can get you whatever you need, at a pretty decent cost. The elevator stops and they step into Jake’s office. Pictures of Jake all over the universe line the walls, along with a scale model of a battleship called the _Abraxas_.

You fought in the war? Frankie asks before she can stop herself.

First wave, baby, says Jake. Relativity keeps me young. You’re looking at former Fleet Admiral Jacob Sassacre.

Holy _fuck_ , says Frankie. Why’d you tell me that, I could sell that info for half this planet.

‘Cause you need me. I know who you are, Raisa Katz. I’ve known who you are for the last five days, because two legislacerators showed up in my office with a picture of you and begged me to find you. I sent them to a bar. Looks like you got away.

Jake reaches inside his desk and pulls out a fat gold-plated pistol. He’s got it trained on Frankie before she can move a muscle. She is doing nothing at all.

I know you’re going by Frankie Egbert right now. Frankie from your suicidal friend in basic training, Egbert from your drill sergeant. Not exactly an inspired psuedonym if you want to stay hidden in a universe that wants you dead.

Does this office want me dead, asks Frankie.

Not really, says Jake. Just wants to know if you’ll be more profitable alive or dead.

Frankie reaches into her pocket and hands Jake a piece of paper. He unfolds it and pins it to his desk with a jade paperweight shaped like a skull. It says:

shopping list 

one (1) trollish death-cruiser; preferably with a class-Ψ psionic helmsman and a bubblegum pink paint job, to be called the _Boss Ass Bitch._ service robots unnecessary but appreciated

one (1) full range unseasoned grubsauce assortment

one (1) small armory, including at least two trollish assault shotguns, a CrockerCorp flux rifle, ammunition, and a punching bag; all else to supplier taste

one (1) refurbished Feng-Harley gas mask, modified to have a pair of sick shades embedded therein

eight (8) canisters of compressed Eight-Ball

one (1) bottle of Bailey’s

one (1) copy of **_The Fellowship of the Ring_** **, hardcover if possible but holo if not**

if you have questions regarding payment please call XX-XXX-XXXX at extension 413.

Jake picks up his phone and dials the number. He answers the security questions and says finally that he’d gotten the number from Frankie. Finally, a very alert voice, caffeine having fully eliminated the Guatemalan accent, answers.

Yes, I’m Jake English, says Jake. A pause. Then, so loudly even Frankie can hear it:

I know who you fucking are, Fleet Admiral Sassacre. Come to apologize to me on your knees after all these years?

Jumping Jehoshaphat, is that Jane? A pause. Quieter talking.

No, but I have a girl here who wants me to beggar the fucking planet because she wrote it down on a piece of paper.

Another pause. Jake looks up at Roxy. The tip of the pistol is now pointing at the skull on his desk as he loses focus.

She looks kind of Jewish, he says. Curly hair with a little pink streak. Small honkers, good muscle, good bone structure. Needs to get outside more. Calm face. Says her name is Frankie.

Jake is one of those dark Asians, but Frankie can still see the blood drain from his face. Whatever Janey said, his complexion sure doesn’t like it.

I understand you well, he mutters with a gulp. No, I. I won’t call again. Have a lovely day. He puts the receiver back into the dock, then he puts his pistol back into his desk drawer. He sits down and suddenly he looks like every single century between now and the start of the war hit him in the last few minutes. He says give me those glasses for the gas mask. Go to the shuttle station in a five days. We’ll pick you up there. Your ship will be waiting with all your things inside at the orbital port. Anything else, Ms. Katz?

That’s all, says Frankie. Good doing business with you.

 

Good doing business with you, says Jane Crocker, closing her briefcase with a slim, professional smile, just barely revealing two rows of surgically aligned white teeth. Jake Sassacre, the self-proclaimed Killer from Manila, Fleet Admiral of CrockerCorp’s colossal private army, adjusts the shoulders of his coat. He isn’t wearing his glasses because they make him look his age and he needs to be the picture of authority, so all he can see of the proceedings are a few gray blurs—pinstripes, and the skin of the other species. Yet another planet on the credit rolls of CrockerCorp. Allelujah.

As soon as the aliens leave Jane sighs in relief and cheers; she rushes over to Jake and hugs him around the middle, picking him up in her excitement. He puts out his glasses and the world comes back into focus; Jane’s, er, mammaries are pressed into his chest and he’s pretty sure he’s not even done enough with puberty to _not_ react to that so he pulls away fast and says he has an appointment.

Jane is disappointed—she had champagne imported—but luckily Jake actually did have an appointment. Just not one Jane was supposed to know about.

Hours into the future (but not many), he jumps into the ring like he owns the place. He’s got two belts over his shoulder; in the months they’ve been on this rotten planet, he’s won two tournaments. Today’s the championship match, against someone he’s never met before. Trolls just got into the league, so he’s had a lot of new opponents.

This one’s a girl, though. She’s shorter than most of the trolls he knows, only about six feet, but she’s got big honking gills on the sides of her face and long braids tied up in Princess-Leia buns on the side of her head. Her body is padded all over with fat, the way seals are, but she doesn’t jiggle like a human would, all tight and powerful. She smiles and, great googly-moogly, her mouth looks like a Sarlacc pit. Her shorts are black with pink trim and say “PEIXES” on the fronts.

The bell rings and all at once she’s in front of Jake and her fuschia boxing glove is flying at his face, too fast to block so he turns his jaw and dodges. He can feel the force of the punch wiggling his meager collection of chin hairs. He brings the duck into a roll and punches up with it, follows up with both hands, relentless. But she keeps her guard up and doesn’t take any of them full on. She sets her foot back and Jake is already preparing to block, this punch is telegraphed a mile away. She pulls the punch up from her toes and it hits his arms and keeps going, hits him square in the face.

A millisecond of the crowd roaring and then it’s all gone for a second. Jake open his eyes.

Five! Six!

Had enough muhfucka? asks Peixes, slurring every letter she can get her tongue around. I see those eyes open. You scared.

Seven! Eight!

Jake stands up. His left eye is swollen shut and his right eye is seeing blurry, only red. He went from the top of his game to 1 HP with the League Champion still at full health. He can hardly stay upright. Peixes comes in for the kill and doesn’t find it. Jake isn’t really a boxer, and this isn’t a boxing event. This is a _fight club_. He doesn’t have to play it clean.

His knee shoots between her legs. Digs up another inch further than the contact point. Peixes shrieks and her guard falls apart. Jake can’t see her face, but the white of her teeth stands out. He aims a few inches to the side and punches her in the gill. His other hand makes a diagonal down and finds a home in her throat. Peixes falls. He follows.

A while later they drag him away. He can’t see anything anymore, but he feels something cold on his hands and some people shouting in weird trilly voices in words he can’t understand.

Days in the future, but not many:

Jane Crocker visits Jake Sassacre in hospital to show him a hi-definition video of the Fleet Admiral of CrockerCorp getting knocked out by a highblood troll, who he stood in a room with mere hours before and watched sign a treaty. She made sure he watched himself get up, kick her in the gonads, punch her in the throat, and then straddle her and punch until his hands were covered in blood. She leaves without a word, but she takes his Admiral’s coat with her.

A message is relayed to every human embassy on Alternian-controlled planets shortly before they are razed to the ground with inhabitants inside. It is forwarded to Jane Crocker’s desk. It reads:

)(IC: seals off hoe. seals as in deals. its a fuckin fish pun, cod damn. 

)(IC: anywave, reel free to catch these hands

)(IC: eat ma bulge, etc etc 

)(IC: signed, ya boo, meenah peixes

*)(IC changed her STATUS to MOV-E, BITC)(, G-ET OUT T)(-E WAY*

 

Frankie’s ship is even better than she thought it would be. It comes with a complimentary kitten, a case of the best cognac the planet has to offer, a bouquet of flowers, and a framed picture of English that she immediately tosses out of the airlock.

She sets a course for the Altarf system and leaves realspace just as the HICS _Saline-Enriched Barkbeast_ settles in for port.

We just missed her, says Neophyte Serket.

I know, Neophyte, says Ironsides. If we’d caught her here, we would’nt have gotten to find out where she is going.

The two of them share a laugh and drinks as they refuel. Neophyte Serket turns to her superior officer, who is a blood inferior. The Cruellest Bar is the only imperial service which values competence over haemocaste. This is why both of them chose it.

What is eating you, Neophyte, asks Ironsides.

Statistically speaking, nookrot, says Dreadlocks. But would you believe me if I told you the other bluebloods have been treating me like Rudolf the Rust-Blood Rangebeast for becoming a dirty civil servant?

No. I know full well that you don’t care for the opinion of anything save your bulge and your rifle, Neophyte. You were born with all the money you could ever want and will live long enough to see that money become worthless and then powerful again. Your caste is well placed: long-lived enough to enjoy life, short-lived enough to get out while you’re still happy.

If you value time so highly, then what are you doing in this service?

It’s the best, says Ironsides. The most valuable use of time I could see. The pursuit of justice, Neophyte Serket.

Call me Vriska.

I will not. But perhaps I will consider it someday. Have another drink, Neophyte. Ironsides refills Vriska’s glass, so slowly the brown liquid doesn’t even bubble.

Are you intoxicated enough to tell me why you  requested special permission to hunt this human, asks Neophyte Serket. Ironsides chuckles.

Do not jump the gun, young lawn-springing arthropod, she says. Life is long.

But time may be running out, says Neophyte Serket. Kanaya told me—

Doom only comes one second at a time, replies Ironsides, and drains her glass.

 

***

The _Boss Ass Bitch_ is in stable orbit around Altarf IV when HICS _Saline-Enriched Barkbeast_ drags it in. The airlocks are pried open, and a platoon of cavalreapers, lead by Neophyte Serket are dispatched to locate Raisa Katz onboard.

They do not notice when the atmospheric control units begin to filter Eight Ball into the air. Eight Ball is colorless and the only odor it possesses is the faint smell of peaches. A common human antiseptic, it was found to be stereochemically similar to sopor slime, only with an effect on trolls 300x stronger.

Only Neophyte Serket was wearing a mask. It’s a trap, Ironsides had told her. The human will be on the surface. Feel free to clean up anything that’s on the ship.

Neophyte Serket hides in the ventilation shaft while repurposed service robots shoot an entire platoon of sedated cavalreapers dead with assault shotguns. She shimmies her way to the nearest open room and drops down into it. Sitting there is a bouquet of flowers, a small note welcoming the troll w/ the sick dreds *dreads, and a bottle of the finest cognac native to the Via Appia. Neophyte Serket figures that if she’s going to die, she might as well enjoy the cognac.

 

If I’m about to die, reasons Roxy, I might as well enjoy the cognac.

The scientists have learned a lot from this big guy. He’s undergone surgery after surgery, all the while on a solution of .02 M Eight Ball to keep him happy. It’s of more interest to the anatomy research team that he stay conscious, so he isn’t quite doped enough to be unconscious, just to feel none of the pain he ought to.

Roxy takes one last swig from the bottle and sets it down. The liquid inside shudders. The shields are already down, so soldiers from the ship that’s attacking the lab are probably already preparing to board. She’ll have to be quick about this.

In the course of their research they discovered a lot of things about trollkind, and especially this guy’s haemocaste. His psychic powers could give humans nightmares; what they do to trolls was probably much worse. His body was still strong; old though he was, and over twelve feet tall, the wizened purpleblood had once shifted his IV out of his neck and gotten out of containment. It had taken putting Eight Ball in the air filter to finally bring him down.

Now Roxy yanks out all his IVs. Blood leaks from each small wound. He doesn’t move. Roxy shakes her head and pulls out a small pistol. She fires. His eyes snap open, the pupils tiny and the irises around them a rich plum. She leaves him to it.

 

You enjoying that? Frankie steps out from behind a stack of crates and Neophyte Serket slops cognac all over her front. Ell-em-ay-oh, not anymore.

Why did you do it? asks Neophyte Serket. What the fuck could we have even done to deserve this.

I didn’t do what you think I did, Frankie says. I might have loaded the gun, but it wasn’t me who pulled the trigger.

Seven Mother Grubs have died, says Neophyte Serket, quiet.

That’s not why you’re here, says Frankie. Not why Ironsides is here, either.

Her name is—

I know what her name is, says Frankie.

How could you? Frankie just smiles and puts her hands up, slides one of her feet back behind her. Her knees are just a little bit bent and she starts slide/walking towards Neophyte Serket, real flowy. What in the hell are you playing at asks the Neophyte.

Nothing, says Frankie, and when Neophyte Serket slashes at her head with her pirate saber, Frankie’s arm comes up and blocks at an oblique. The saber shears a thin slice of flesh and skin off of her arm but Neophyte Serket is wide open. Frankie brings a hand up and twists it out, driving the fleshy base of her palm into Serket’s left eye. Faster than the strike hit, she pulls it away. Rapid expansion right after intense compression works its percussive magic: Serket’s eye, all seven pupils, ruptures and bursts, spurting blue blood and chunks of yellow sclera all over Frankie’s retreating hand.

Before Serket can react further, Frankie lifts a leg and kicks her knee. Nothing doing; troll bones are tough, and highbloods especially. She retreats a few steps. Serket is howling and clutching her eye. She reaches out the hand that isn’t clutching the ruined ocular and tries something. Frankie feels it, eight hands and fangs in her mind, grappling for control. But there’s nothing to hold on to.

How are you doing this, asks Serket.

I’m not doing anything, replies Frankie. By the way, I know kung fu. Serket foams at the mouth and falls. She’ll wake up in a few seconds. Frankie absconds and seals up the ventilation shaft behind her.

 

Frankie, with meticulously washed hands, slides into a comfortable booth bench in a diner on Altarf IV. Hopefully Ironsides is still at the warehouse, waiting to spring a meetup that isn’t going to happen. Today was risky, but worth it. It’s her win. A waiter comes to take her order, and she waves them off, staring at the street.

It’s cool fam, she says. I’m waiting on someone. I’ll order when they get here.

Are you sure, asks the waiter.

Frankie turns to look at the waiter, and the easy smile falls off of her face.

She glances up into bright red sunglasses, then down and right into the barrel of an troll assault shotgun. As if from a great distance, she hears Ironsides compliment her taste in hardware. There is a perfectly timeless second—the nothingness inside Frankie’s brain respects neither speed nor mortality, and in the time she should be fading to black she remembers a time long ago, when her name was Roxy Lalonde, when she saw the Great Pyramids demolished to build CrockerLand.

She remembers a man named Dirk Strider, who she left for dead, and who didn’t make it. His rich skin, darker than the other side of the moon, and his fine, long eyelashes. She remembers his cheap, salty food, and his kindness. She thinks about his sunglasses, abandoned now, doomed to eternity alone until they run out of power.

She remembers her mother knitting a scarf she left on the laboratory when Roxy Lalonde died and Frankie Egbert was born. She remembers being six when her mother swallowed a little blue pill with her coffee and Kahlua and threw her typewriter out of the window. She remembers going to college on her mother’s dime, and when her mother died, not shedding a tear at the funeral.

She remembers the first time she kissed Jane Crocker, and the last. She remembers that troll, so long ago, and wishes she could have seen him one last time.

But before it all ends, this is what she sees:

She has just turned sixteen. Her mother is still alive, but she’s not here. The house is cold and dark, but far from empty. Teenagers in thigh-length black dresses and cat ears sip concoctions of orange juice and champagne, but only the ones Raisa mixes taste like anything. Two of her classmates are on her mother’s couch, threatening to topple the bronze vacuum cleaner. Small wet noises, fingers where they shouldn’t be.

Raisa is also wearing a cat costume, complete with black nose makeup, and she’s sitting on her kitchen counter sipping a martini.

Your mom’s books are so cool, says a kid who’s probably never read any of them, while looking for food in her refrigerator. You must feel so lucky, having Rosalind Lalonde as your mother.

No, not really, says Raisa.

Hey, you wanna go upstairs, asks the kid.

No, not really, says Raisa.

Oh. The kid leaves the kitchen and so does Raisa, going over the counter and climbing the staircase like a real cat. She turns a few corners and suddenly she’s outside, on the side of her house, the cold October breeze reminding her why Halloween parties take place inside. A muffled bang; the fingerfuckers have finally knocked over the vacuum.

Raisa keeps ascending until she is at the top of the observatory, on the roof of her house. She stares up into the night sky and all its empty lights, and wants nothing more than to dissolve into them, to leave Earth on one of the ships the government’s been secretly building in silos all over America and never know her own name again. She sees a shooting star, and makes a wish.

And then, in a maelstrom of flying cotton, pink mist, and shattered glass, she dies.

 

***

Roxy meets her first alien on the way to the lab. She has never seen a troll before, and for a moment simply marvels. The top half of its face is covered by the helmet’s visor, and the bottom half is hanging just slightly open to reveal a jaw full of gleaming white teeth the size of arrowheads. A pair of horns perforate the lid of the helmet. Seems like a logical point of attack to Roxy.

The troll’s got a huge gun on its back, so Roxy doesn’t give it a chance to fire. She runs in fast, at a dead sprint, and leaps. She never sees the sickle that cuts her hamstring, but she grabs the long horns and her momentum drags the troll down to the ground with her. An orange spur rests clutched in her fist; the moment she recovers from the stun of the fall, she drives it through the visor into the troll’s brain. Olive blood spills over the floor. Roxy shakes for a moment, then her hands still. She has to get to the lab. She takes the troll’s gun; a big motherfucking gun, like it was for killing elephants.

Walking proves a complete impossibility. She’s bleeding more than she likes to think about—doesn’t hurt much yet. But she knows endorphins will only buy her a little time. She hauls herself up against the wall and begins the process of hopping to the lab, using the massive gun as a sort of crutch. The sound of distant gunfire only makes her move faster.

She finds a first aid kit against a wall and puts some white bandage-looking shit on her wound. It sinks into her flesh a little bit, meshes, and turns the same creamy brown as her skin. The bleeding ceases, but she still can’t walk.

Win some, lose some, she says. She doesn’t know how she’s keeping her humor up. She makes it to the lab, though, her laptop still humming on the clean white surface of the table. She checks the results with each of the eleven cell cultures.

Maroon-blooded cells. No effect.

Brown-blooded cells. No effect.

Mustard-blooded cells. No effect.

Olive-blooded cells. No effect.

Roxy is afraid to keep going. She isn’t sure what she wants to see. She starts up at violet and counts all the way down again, with each cell seemingly unaware of what swims around in the culture with it. Until, with no other recourse, she reaches jade.

It’s only been a few hours, so there isn’t much the viruses have had time to do. But projections show that the jadeblood cells are on the first path down the road to protracted terminal illness. It works!. Dr. Feng-Harley was right, her research worked, it’s over. Roxy draws a vial of the stuff in saline, and tucks it into the pocket of her lab coat, and tries to decide whether or not to try run.

In the end, the sound of approaching gunfire is what does it. Roxy doesn’t want to stay, but she’s too slow to do anything else. She lays prone and clutches her gun, praying for mercy.

The door to the lab slowly opens. Two hesitant footsteps. From where she’s hiding, Roxy can only see the troll’s feet. Then,

Anyone in here? The voice is scratchy and a bit too loud, like the speaker is nervous. Good fucking God, I hope not. Room clea—

The troll is cut off by an entire side of the wall exploding. A massive fist, black with age, pushes a few broken cinderblocks aside. The troll in armor immediately fell to its knees, screaming to wake the dead. Roxy sees a black sickle fall to the ground next to the troll’s leg with a clang.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, screams the troll.

Ain’t no cause to be all up and getting your howl on, brother, says a voice so deep and awful that Roxy wants to be sick. The voice crawls up her stomach and makes her think of the precise taste and consistency of cold maple syrup. You just settle on down, lowblood, and I’ll show you how we did it in my generation.

The troll picks up his sickle.

No! Wait! Roxy isn’t sure what’s going on. The troll keeps begging, and in fact sounds like he’s crying. Don’t— _please_ , and there’s something in Roxy that never wants to see a suicide again. She rolls out of her hiding spot, braces, the gun, and pauses. For one unholy second she sees the huge purpleblood. He’s put his kinky hair up in twists so much like the ones Raisa’s dad used to wear. But his face is painted in blood.

She pulls the the trigger and the room explodes.

The massive troll is howling and smashing everything he can see, or maybe he can’t see, because where his eyes should be is a gaping purple testament to gore. The screaming troll has finally shut up and is evading blows like a dancer, and Roxy has never heard the word threshcutioner but she might come up with it, watching the troll clip flesh from the monster. But it catches him one in the gut and he flies into the opposite wall, so hard a few construction blocks hit the ground with him.

WHO FUCKIN SHOT ME, howls the highblood, and Roxy says,

Nobody. Everyone freezes. And Roxy takes the opportunity to shoot one more time. This time the highblood’s face spatters the opposite wall. Everything’s quiet. Roxy crawls, prone, over to where the troll landed, and sees him trapped under construction blocks, knocked out. And she’s so tired, she just closes her eyes and drifts off.

She wakes up some time after and says,

Doc Harley? And then a moment later remembers that Doc Harley doesn’t speak Alternian with an accent best compared to a garbage disposal, and also that Doc Harley is probably dead. Her brain kicks in and she starts really listening to what she’s hearing.

Don’t even know what I’m thinking, the troll is saying. Every moment I spend trying to decide whether or not to kill her is another long suck at the distended taint of the udderbeast called treason.

Wow, says Roxy, that is really fucking disgusting.

Mind your own fucking, says the troll, wait, where in the Grus did you learn to speak Alternian?

Jade Feng-Harley.

Oh, says the troll, funny coincidence, our mission was to kill her. Lucky us, right? First mission of the war is killing some human.

What do you mean, first, she asks. It’s been hundreds of years.

It’s basic fucking relativity, he says, laughing. Hey, are we winning?

Yeah, says Roxy. The big shots don’t want to admit it, but you guys are kicking our species’ collective ass. That’s why this lab exists. If we can’t beat you with guns, we’ll use something else.

So what are you?

Xenovirologist, says Roxy.

Elders, he murmurs. What have you been making?

If you’re nice, maybe someday I’ll tell you.

They don’t say anything for a while. Roxy falls asleep.

 

You ever been in love, she asks him, the next day.

What the fuck is love, he asks, and the giggling fit that ensues puts him into a sulky silence for a few hours. But she pries him with details.

Love is like...romance! Kissing and cuddling and stuff. I used to have a squeeze, back when I was just a reckless young hacker with nothing to lose, haha. She looks down. My girl got rich. _Really_ rich. I don’t talk to her anymore.

Any other quadrants? he asks. Roxy asks what the hell is a quadrant, and he laughs for ages.

It’s only all of fucking romance in an easy box. Wow, no wonder you guys are losing the war. I’ve filled all of mine; my moirail is a jadeblood, but she ran off, she doesn’t tend grubs anymore. Matesprit is this olive girl, she’s kind of half-feral but like, fuck it, right? And then my kismesis. His eyes glaze over.

She’s a legislacerator. You ever heard of the Cruellest Bar?

Sounds like a lawyer thing.

They’re traveling investigators. Sent by the Empire to root out criminals, bring them before His Honorable Tyranny, and execute the fuck out of them! He’s getting more excited by the word. They’re the smartest, most terrifying motherfuckers in the whole damn army, except maybe the threshcutioners. Terezi—my kismesis—she’s _blind_.

Jesus fuck, says Roxy.

And she never takes off her stupid red sunglasses. She doesn’t want to hide, my girl. Oh, and I used to have an auspitice. He gets quiet, and doesn’t talk again.

 

So you killed Dr. Harley? Roxy closes her eyes, not ready to really look at him. But she can hear the way his chest puffs out with every word.

You better believe it. The Threshcutioner Corps don’t disappoint. The Empress says jump, we say, into which motherfucking polybrachial stellar conglomerate. Hooah. Roxy closes her eyes.

Did you do it? Like, personally? And he says,

Nah. I’ve don’t kill for the Empress. And that’s so surprising that Roxy opens her eyes to get a better look at him.

What makes you say that?

I had a friend, he says. Auspitice, actually. His name was Sollux. And because Roxy knows how these types of stories end, she asks, what happened to him?

He used to run information for the rebels. Best fucking helmsman the world ever saw. He thought no one was faster than him. But that beautiful asshole was still so young, he couldn’t have known. Karkat pauses, choked up. His ancestor. Kept alive on the Flagship Condescension. Probably the only troll in the galaxy more powerful than him.

When the Condesce caught him, she had him vivisected and the footage broadcast all over the galaxy. I read the reports. His cerebrospinal matrix was forty-two percent mind honey by weight. Do you know what that means? Roxy doesn’t.

He was a genius. Once in a civilization. He could have. Fuck, he could have done anything. Ended world. Stopped the war. Made orgasm last twice as long. But they cut him up just ‘cause he wanted out of their game. I didn’t want to kill for the Empress anymore after that.

If she didn’t know better she’d say he was only sitting under the construction blocks because it was comfortable. He’s taken off his helmet and his face looks...well. His teeth are a nightmare, he’s got the kind of overbite dentists probably dream of correcting while they sharpen their weird mirror looking tool things. His eyes are big and yellow and his cheeks are kind of fat but his face is so long that it makes him look kind of bestial. But he’s still got helmet hair, which Roxy focuses on. She doesn’t want to see his swollen hands, like the rheumatism or his thick fingers, or his claws with the blood underneath.

Why did you join the military if you didn’t want to kill, asks Roxy. He laughs.

Every troll born wants to kill. Some people want to kill for the Empire. I want to kill the fucking Empire.

Respect, she says. And he raises a hand to stop her.

Just shut up. I’m not expecting you to get it. All I’m saying is, if someone told me I could press a button and stop the Empress cold, I’d hit that until my claws fell off. Roxy considers this.

What’s your name, she asks.

Hatch name Karkat signomen Vantas Threshcutioner Corps V.I.P unit V.I.P. let’s kick it. All in one breath, of course. Currently fulfilled in two quadrants. He pauses. But you don’t want to know about quadrants.

I’m Roxy. Karkat, if I told you I hold the end of the empire in my pocket, what would you say.

I’d say you were full of so much shit it’s a wonder the air pressure doesn’t force it out of your orifices like some sort of fecal tectonic eruption. Roxy pulls out the vial and says,

This won’t hurt ninety-nine percent of trolls. It gives jadebloods cancer.

And? he asks.

It gives _Mother Grubs_ cancer.

He’s silent. He says you people weren’t going to give it to troll revolutionaries before, were you, and she says are you retarded. He says she might be. She says all he has to do is drink the solution and fuck someone. Easy as that. His slurry goes to a Mother Grub. She gets cancer. Repeat until they’re all fucking dead. And then you give them the cure.

Which is, he asks. She grins.

Soybeans.

You are a sick motherfucker, he says. Give me that shit. She rolls it over to him, he opens it, drinks it all. And then he gets up, easy as anything, the blocks roll off of him. She says what in the fuck. He says mutants heal fast.

They’re going to give me a medal when Mothers start dying, she says. He smiles.

When the Empress finds you, he says, come find me and my people on Altarf IV.

How should I know it’s you?

I’ll take something from this ship, something you’ll recognize. I’ll just need your name to find your respiteblock.

It’s Roxy Lalonde. Good luck, Karkat.

Good luck, Roxy human. And then he’s running, he’s gone. Roxy never sees him again.

 

For shame, Neophyte Serket. For shame, Ironsides is saying. Waylaid by a mere human. The Bar will hear of your failure.

Yes, ma’am says Neophyte Serket. Now that the business is done, will you tell me why you wanted this case? Ironsides stops, her back to the Neophyte.

I had a kismesis once, she says, who disappeared after entering a ship that played host to a battle that only one other person survived.

Katz?

That’s confidential. All I’ll say is, I just wanted to finish the chain.

  
And below on Altarf IV, a troll in a bright pink scarf waits for a friend who will never come.


End file.
